Songs. We sing a lot of them. We write them. We hear them. We pick them out for every weekend service.
If you’re a worship leader, songs are your currency. You can’t exist without them.
For me, songs are a love/hate relationship. I enjoy them. I like singing them. But when it comes to worship, I feel like we tend to worship them.
Wouldn’t that be interesting if the very vehicle designed to help us worship actually kept us from worshiping?
Songs can get in the way of the real thing. We know how to sing but we’ve lost our ability to pray. We know how to pick songs but we don’t really know how to lead worship. We feel comfortable behind our guitars but don’t know how to lay our hands on the sick.
We attend worship events to hear our favorite bands and sing our favorite songs, but are we really connecting with our Maker?
I’m calling worship leaders to more of the real thing. Maybe we nee to lead less worship and learn how to read our Bibles again. Maybe we need to lay aside our talents for a season and re-capture a heart for the lost. Maybe we need to get off the stage and have conversations with suffering widows. Maybe. Just maybe.
Are Songs a Problem?
Well, songs could be a problem.
But…
Songs connect us. Songs inspire us. Songs help us process our pain and remember the promises of God when we need them the most.
Songs matter.
But let’s not forget that the greatest song is a life laid down. Let’s get back to living the life and being real.
Worship Leader, you need to be a Christian before you are a musician. You need to love Jesus before you love songs. It’s these disciplines and this foundation that gives you authority as a leader.
- Let’s pray for the people we lead.
- Let’s read our Bibles.
- Let’s spend time with Jesus even if it doesn’t produce a song, a book, or a sermon
- Let’s study more about the fullness of God.
- Let’s share the Gospel with our neighbors.
- Let’s invite people into our lives.
- Let’s love Jesus with abandon.
What do you say?
[ois skin=”Beyond Sunday 2″]
I once dated a girl. (my friends were shocked) We had one thing in common.
We both loved her.
The music industry is dating Jesus and they have one thing in common. The industry is at odds with Jesus because it has set itself up, in love to make money at any cost–even using Jesus as the headmaster and CEO of sustained profitability. The industry loves itself.
All of these spider webs we continually sweep down with self-flagellation and bemoaning about insincerity, conflicts of interest, pretense and dead-ness are reflections of why Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple.
The spider we need to kill is dressed up as a friend and cohort. The spider puts money in our pockets and fame in our eyes so we dare not kill it. We just keep knocking down the webs of deceit and hope things will change.
I work daily in the entertainment industry. We do productions for performers. I have done this as my personal business for over 22 years.
We can claim that the church needs all this performance and hype to reach the lost all we want but the results do not lie. People of this world are not impressed with our techno-savvy and modernization. Our Jesus versions of their real make the church nothing more than less-than-real copy-cats. The church has lost its power and authority in this country because the entertainment industry was welcomed in. It turned church/worship/faith into a cheap and false production. The world mocks us as such and they are right to do so.
We have become the AA meeting at the local brewery.
Nobody’s pep talk will fix this. We need a church that is separated from the world and all its associations. I am not convinced that we are willing to go back there again. The cost would be enormous and the lifestyle unbearable.
But, O the freedom, and the church could once again offer something to this world more than a warmed over, C grade production of what they get any time they want in the world.
We get our power back… “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these.” II Tim. 3:4-5
We get our stink back…”In fact, God thinks of us as a perfume that brings Christ to everyone. For people who are being saved, this perfume has a sweet smell and leads them to a better life. But for people who are lost, it has a bad smell and leads them to a horrible death. ” II Cor. 2:15-16
We get our reputation back…”Giving no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited.” II Cor. 6:3
I think many of God’s attributes are lost in “our” songs. Namely, the fact that He is holy. We have catchy, rock-like hymns that we LIKE, that we lift up as worship. But, is it HOLY? Does it meet our needs, or truly worship a holy God? I don’t judge…I just wonder…
This is a great reminder. Thanks for putting these thoughts to words.
I just found your podcast today, and loved it.
Thanks!
I find it difficult to find a church doesn’t have a Rock Band playing with the woofer speakers and the microphones are turned up so loud you couldn’t hear God. The churches are too small for that. I feel bad for the children who have to listen to it. It’s not healthy! I have had to get up and leave because my heart was having palpitations from the vibrations. I like some of the Christian “Rock”, but not in Church when I’m worshiping and getting ready to hear what God has for us. I’m running out of churches to visit. What can we do about it.